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Boeing ending production of the Queen of the Skies

Milland

Diamond
Joined
Jul 6, 2006
Location
Hillsboro, New Hampshire
A true "end of an era", with Boeing ending manufacture of their flagship aircraft: End of the runway for 747 jumbo as Boeing placed final part orders - Reuters

I never really was a fan of the A380, it just didn't "look" right, but the 747 is a plane I grew up with, and I actually feel sad to hear of it becoming history, rather than (in a sense) part of the present.

Well, they'll be flying for many more years to come, I suspect I'll be "grounded" before the final flight of a 747.
 
They knew it was coming. They actually made it happen with the twin engine 7 series. Definitely a cool airplane. With the 777 787 planes they killed the need for a huge jetliner. That's why they didn't get into a true double decker like the a380.
 
An amazing aircraft! Working as an A&P for one of the majors in the 1990s it was impressive to see 3 or 4 on the ramp, wingtip to wingtip ready to start the day.

Not so impressive was to draw the work card to do the landing gear lube. Hundreds of fittings.....and the hands of the clock never slowed as pushback time rolled around and praying the lube gun and bucket of grease would cooperate. Let's not even talk about the blue lav juice storage tanks. LOL

Tribute to Boeing when they seemed to get everything right...And a time when UAL was kinda sorta a great airline.

She is a beautiful acft.
 
if i read it correctly Qantas was retiring some 747s and some newer A380's ( airbus) were being put into storage. I think they chalked up 50 years of service on the 747 so that makes them quite reliable and well known, qantas has a good reputation for being a safe airline to fly with so they have managed to nail down any issues with it.

The a380 however is relatively new and being mothballed due to the airline not being able to fly internationally due to china virus, the internal flights i believe are limited here at the moment due to state border closures but are looking at opening up.

There are is a smaller carrier REX which is still flying regional routes.

Virgin which was controlled by several other major airlines and a small stake by richard branson went into administration and was sold to bain capital just recently, i would think they would hand back some lease planes very soon.

A lot of pilots / ground crew / air staff are out of work at the moment.

This china virus has had a major impact even though the amount of people infected with it is very low, the politicians are not implementing good practices on containment and are hurting the economy.
This was from day one, they didn't test people returning and let them go into the community. As it originated in china the only way would could have got it was by returning travellers then subsequently by them as close contacts.

Even with all the faults Australia has low cases compared to America you have a lot of deaths and cases, may need to check deaths against the vietnam war as it may be more than it.

Australia needs a bill of rights for the people like America for it to evolve into a more innovative country like yours, even once that happens it will take time for the results to appear.
 
I'm like MIlland- I will be gone long before the 747's. Sad to see it end production. one of the nicest planes ever to fly in. Time marches on.

It's a big fleet. The old ones are still worth a lot of money. They'll park them out in the boneyard and pull parts for years to come.

IIRC Airbus had already announced the end of the A380 last year.
 
I believe there is a storage place near Alice Springs ( centre of australia )
Sure is dry in the centre.
Only the head of Qantas would know why he is doing that, not privy to reasoning.
 
I believe there is a storage place near Alice Springs ( centre of australia )
Sure is dry in the centre.
Only the head of Qantas would know why he is doing that, not privy to reasoning.

I was wondering about that too. Just guessing, but it might be lower prevailing winds (meaning less dust blown into the flaps, landing gear, etc.), or perhaps lower UV exposure over the course of a year due to latitude (23.7S for Alice Springs, 35.1N for Mojave Airport, CA).
 
I suppose you could have a look on bom.gov.au the weather details.

Things that it could be are ( guessing )

airport is not of sufficient capacity to land the big plane, its big.

Maybe looking at offloading it to a US carrier in near term for parts or whole.


If it was just storage it would make sense to store it here if they could.
 
SIA were leaving 380s there a few months back if I recall and certainly any empty wide body isn't going to have issues at Alice, sufficient hard stand capacity might be the only technical issue....or more likely it's bottom line and Mojave is cheaper than APAS want to charge.

Outback may be mostly dry, but get a cyclone in the NW and the following rain depression goes right across the continent with no mountain range lee side effect. Plenty of bug smashers have needed tractors to pull them out of bulldust strips gone bad in the wet season.
 
As an A&P, I got to redo the inside of a 747SP for someone with lots of $$$

Got to ride around the ramp with the doors open before the shakedown flight. (To make sure the statuary didn't come loose from vibration etc. I said "Someone with lots of $$$ ;-)

It's a long way off the deck when rolling, and what a sweet ride in the air. The SP could fly point to point ANYWHERE ON THE GLOBE non stop! Just pick a staring direction ;-) Ride in the elevator for entertainment during the trip ;-)
 
A true "end of an era", with Boeing ending manufacture of their flagship aircraft:...

I never really was a fan of the A380, it just didn't "look" right, but the 747 is a plane I grew up with, and I actually feel sad to hear of it becoming history, rather than (in a sense) part of the present.
Did you know Boeing didn't want to build it ? It was Juan Trippe's idea and he forced them into it.

Pan Am was a great airline, one of the first victims of the "deregulation" scam.
 
Boeing tried hard to sell the SPs down here, as they thought load factors would be more favourable. They didn't count on fuel becoming a more important ingredient and QA only ordered a tiny number.

A friend did fly one of his last legs before retirement on that variant, with the Rolls installed putting out a bit more power than the Pratts, they were bit of a hot-rod for a lumbering cattle truck.

Regarding 380 v 747, or 787 for that matter, in the looks department, make mine Concorde! The Bus does have a much nicer environment than the B product, which is all that really concerns the mug punters in long hauls typical here, even if the thing did look ungainly outside.
 
Regarding 380 v 747, or 787 for that matter, in the looks department, make mine Concorde! The Bus does have a much nicer environment than the B product, which is all that really concerns the mug punters in long hauls typical here, even if the thing did look ungainly outside.

Concorde? No, Comrade, Concordski! Tu-144 is best, Da? I ask you, where else can you fly only after chief designer checks out plane first? Is careful, is! And deafness? Is benefit! No more listening to harridan wife!

Besides, risk of death no more than any other supersonic passenger aircraft at airshow, yes? What you have to lose? Just don't live under flight path...
 
Funny you should mention the concorde, i was over in the UK a while ago and went down to the museum i think it was down near Somerset ( its really been a while somewhere down there).

I went in and could walk in the old test mule concorde they used and it still has all the test gear in it ( no seats except cockpit ones), when you walk in it really looks old as nothing had been updated on it.

The outside looks great the inside was a step back in time, its not a very big plane.

A few weeks later a real concorde had the accident with the tyre going into the fuel tank and crashed, i was at the tower of london and saw a concorde flying in after the accident, it was quite busy with chatter from the people there but they all shut up when they saw the plane fly in.
Never actually flew on it but was nice to be inside it to have a bo peek.

Now its totally gone....all the money they spent on it ...i wonder if they kept all the engineering data and drawings or did they just shred it when it shut down?
 
Concorde? No, Comrade, Concordski! Tu-144 is best, Da? I ask you, where else can you fly only after chief designer checks out plane first? Is careful, is! And deafness? Is benefit! No more listening to harridan wife!

Besides, risk of death no more than any other supersonic passenger aircraft at airshow, yes? What you have to lose? Just don't live under flight path...

Typical leftie, commie, fascist, Milland - correct response?

I'd think I'd take my chances with the first Soviet supersonic transport over the early space efforts....running towards burning roman candles on the launch pad, those designers must have really suffered from troublesome women!
 
Typical leftie, commie, fascist, Milland - correct response?

You forgot "bedwetter". And I may be a Fascist Pig too, just to balance things out.

I'd think I'd take my chances with the first Soviet supersonic transport over the early space efforts....running towards burning roman candles on the launch pad, those designers must have really suffered from troublesome women!

Sometimes they suffered from inadequate "what could go wrong?" awareness: Nedelin catastrophe - Wikipedia
 








 
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